Scribe
Legend
Yes, but considering it was a tiny piece of the book and was intentionally removed? I would say its as good as gone moving forward.
D&D General [+] Racially-Discriminating Afterlife Systems
So, FR gives us a direction to go, because it strongly expects individuals to venerate a god. So, you make the afterlife you go to associated with the god you venerate, not your race. Then, make sure there's at least one god in each racial pantheon that doesn't send people to a crappy place.
TheSword
Legend
Really don’t want to start a conflict about the wall of the faithless. Is it enough to agree that while it’s a well known piece of FR Lore the writers chose to remove its mention from SCAG? Rather than speculate on what that means?
It was a small drop in, to my post, where I said it wasn’t necessary.
SehanineMoonbow
Explorer
I always want to know how the afterlife works in fantasy settings, so this is something I pay attention to lol. I wasn't too happy with the 5e change in MToF where elves are essentially forced to reincarnate. Arvandor used to be a reward, not a temporary waystation. But anyway...
It makes sense that most races/species would go to the afterlife of their respective deities, as they are most likely to worship said deities. Most elves in FR worship the Seldarine, for example, and the pull to Arvandor is very strong.
Since Faerun is a polytheistic world, most will pray to a number of gods throughout their lives, though will end up leaning towards one above the other (however slightly). This is the deity that is most likely to take them in--the one that is best aligned with their morals, ethics, and how they lived their life (see Ed Greenwood Presents: Elminster's Forgotten Realms).
Even though certain species tend to worship their respective deities, this doesn't mean others can't, as well (few gods would turn away followers).
It makes sense that most races/species would go to the afterlife of their respective deities, as they are most likely to worship said deities. Most elves in FR worship the Seldarine, for example, and the pull to Arvandor is very strong.
Since Faerun is a polytheistic world, most will pray to a number of gods throughout their lives, though will end up leaning towards one above the other (however slightly). This is the deity that is most likely to take them in--the one that is best aligned with their morals, ethics, and how they lived their life (see Ed Greenwood Presents: Elminster's Forgotten Realms).
Even though certain species tend to worship their respective deities, this doesn't mean others can't, as well (few gods would turn away followers).
MGibster
Legend
That's what I did. I took a page from Greek myth in that the gods were the gods and all creatures, centaurs, fauns, humans, harpies, giants, etc., etc. recognize them as such.
Stormonu
Legend
In my Amberos, the elves and goblinoids return to the dreamlands; they don't have gods (instead being made of the daydreams and dark desires of the deities); dragons likewise are a manifestion of magic and return to the "source" upon death. All other sentients are judged after death by Jhalah, who sends them to their "final reward" based on a codified section of laws - ranging from Hades for the malevolent to the Seven Heavens for the saintly. Save for Hades (which is "guarded/patrolled" by the Yugoloths), each of the other outer realms is the court of one of the Amberosian gods, and most sentients go to the court/plane of the power they venerated in life. Those who made contracts with demons or devils in life are toted off to the Nine Hells or the Abyss at the end of their contract; if the person can actually die before the contract is collected on, they can pass on to their "final reward" - the gods do not respect the claims of Hell or the Abyss, and treat those realms as "abberent" and filled with godly servants that rebelled against the celestial order (though there are a lot of "unexplained" disappearances in Hades, expanding the ranks of Hell and the Abyss respectively).
I feel like there is a conceptual problem of calling different afterlives for different races "discriminatory" when, in D&D terms, beings of different races are very different kinds of beings altogether-- I mean, by all means it is perfectly reasonable to assume that a soul is a soul is a soul in D&D... but it's far from a given, when those races are canonically created differently, at different times, by different gods.
I mean, perhaps human souls do go to the halls of their patron deities upon death-- as one assumes-- but maybe elf souls reincarnate endlessly because they cannot do otherwise, because what an elf calls their "soul" is not at all the same thing as a human soul.
Maybe different human religions have different afterlives, even; maybe it is the humans of druidic cultures that reincarnate endlessly, while the humans of deific cultures proceed to "the afterlife". These cultures view each other with terrible pity, the latter seeing the former as trapped in the material plane, while the former see the latter as being stolen from the birth cycle.
The Great Wheel that's been forcibly inserted into every pre-3.X D&D setting is fine, it is one perfectly okay way to categorize the spiritual elements of your setting... but it's a very specific way of doing things that isn't particularly compatible with any Earthlike religion and is especially poorly suited to worlds that assume multiple (generally correct) religious faiths. This is never more apparent than when trying to reconcile the Great Wheel's concept of alignment planes with the existence of multiple pantheons of gods, and racial pantheons that reside in the domains of their leaders.
If you want it to make sense, you're going to have to build it, purposefully, from scratch. And the nature of the different kinds of humanoid souls is a design decision that you would have to make for yourself, purposefully, and build your cosmology around it.
I mean, perhaps human souls do go to the halls of their patron deities upon death-- as one assumes-- but maybe elf souls reincarnate endlessly because they cannot do otherwise, because what an elf calls their "soul" is not at all the same thing as a human soul.
Maybe different human religions have different afterlives, even; maybe it is the humans of druidic cultures that reincarnate endlessly, while the humans of deific cultures proceed to "the afterlife". These cultures view each other with terrible pity, the latter seeing the former as trapped in the material plane, while the former see the latter as being stolen from the birth cycle.
The Great Wheel that's been forcibly inserted into every pre-3.X D&D setting is fine, it is one perfectly okay way to categorize the spiritual elements of your setting... but it's a very specific way of doing things that isn't particularly compatible with any Earthlike religion and is especially poorly suited to worlds that assume multiple (generally correct) religious faiths. This is never more apparent than when trying to reconcile the Great Wheel's concept of alignment planes with the existence of multiple pantheons of gods, and racial pantheons that reside in the domains of their leaders.
If you want it to make sense, you're going to have to build it, purposefully, from scratch. And the nature of the different kinds of humanoid souls is a design decision that you would have to make for yourself, purposefully, and build your cosmology around it.
It really should depend how your pantheons are structured. When you have racial gods, i.e. X created elves, Y created dwarves then it just logical that races also have different afterlives. If on the other hand you do not have creator gods but gods for specific concepts then they should all be mixed together. After all, a soul is a soul and doesn't really have a race anymore after their death.
The problem comes when a setting mixes types of gods which is all of them? Creator gods for nonhumans was and still are very common but no one designing a setting wants to open the can of worms of giving humans a creator god, too. So they get concept gods instead.
The problem comes when a setting mixes types of gods which is all of them? Creator gods for nonhumans was and still are very common but no one designing a setting wants to open the can of worms of giving humans a creator god, too. So they get concept gods instead.
Similar Threads
